The Spirits & the Doppelgänger

Welcome to another episode of Believing the Bizarre. It’s Listener Submission time again!

This episode is brought to us by Ben and details a handful of creepy and paranormal encounters he has had. From witnessing a ghost in the shower to an exact look-a-like of his mother, we cover quite a few terrifying encounters.

But, are these experiences believable? Listen to find out!

What’s up Bizzaros? 

Do you believe some people are more sensitive than others? That they have more experiences because they are more acutely attuned to the things that are behind the veil that separates our world from theirs? 

This week we dive into the story of someone who seems to be plugged into the paranormal world that surrounds. 

Join us as Ben tells us his tales and the experiences he’s witnessed.

“I grew up in a small town in Southern Illinois called Thebes.  The town has about five hundred people, but most live out in the country. The town’s only claim to fame is that there is an old courthouse where Abraham Lincoln practiced law and Dred Scott may have been imprisoned there.” Ben tells us.

Ben lived in an old house on the outskirts of town. The house was on a dead-end street and had woods and train tracks behind it. 

On the other side of the train tracks was a hill that led to the town’s cemetery. The house was older, Ben wasn’t sure of the age, but he knew that an old woman had died in the living room of the house. 

Being an older house it made creaks and sounds that could easily be explained, and after living in a house for so long he grew accustomed to the sounds and could distinguish between the normal groans of an old house, and those that were caused by an otherworldly visitor. 

Ben’s First and Second Experiences.

Ben gives us a layout of his house as it’s important for the experiences he had in the home. 

“Let me give you a quick layout of the house that is kind of complicated but is important for certain events. The first room from the front porch was the kitchen. The kitchen had a doorway to the right that led to the dining room and a door across from the front door leading to the back porch. The dining room had a door on the right side of the room that led outside and a door on the left side that led into the hallway. 

The living room was connected to the dining room. The hallway had stairs to the left that led to both my brother’s rooms and a window frame that went to the back porch, which was added onto the house at some point. The bathroom was connected to the hallway and my parent’s room was across from the window.

I’m the youngest out of three boys so I got the small room. My room was behind my parents and had a door to the back porch. The back porch made an L shape from the kitchen to my room.”

Around the age of 7 or 8, Ben was awakened by the sound of the back porch door opening into his bedroom.

“It was dark and I couldn’t see anyone for a few seconds. But I heard footsteps coming towards me and saw what appeared to be a person. I got scared and threw the covers over my head and waited for something to grab me, but after several minutes, I peeked out and it was gone. But the backdoor was still open. I got up and closed it and after a few hours fell back to sleep.” he said.

A few weeks later a similar thing happened. He woke up to the door opening but didn’t see anyone. He thinks he imagined it because he didn’t see or hear anything after several minutes so he just rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.

Within minutes he heard footsteps at the foot of his bed. Rolling over to look he saw a person standing at the foot of his bed.

“The person was wearing what looked like a black leather jacket, black pants, and black fedora hat. Its hands and face are blacked out and it moved its hand up as if it had a knife or something.” Ben described.

“I bolted out of the room by jumping from the foot of the bed, ran through my parent’s room into the hallway, and straight into the bathroom where I locked the door. I stayed there until sunrise and went back to my room to see the door was still open and no one was there.”

When Ben asked his father he said it was him checking on our wood stove that was on the back porch and just cutting through his room. However, when Ben asked him why he never checked on him when he ran out of the room, his father had no answer.

Experience 3

“I was around the age of 9. I had woken up one morning to see a woman standing on the back porch in an old grey dress with her arms in front of her with her hands crossed by her waist” Ben said.

“I  had felt a sort of comfort so I just went back to sleep. When I woke up again, she was gone.”

With three experiences in three years Ben had experienced more paranormal events than most people do in a lifetime, but things were just beginning.

Experience 4

This happened around the time Ben was 12. His oldest brother had moved out of the house, so Ben moved into one of the upstairs bedrooms. 

“It was the last day of Christmas break and I was woken up by the sound of someone coming up the stairs. The light at the top of the stairs was blacked out by the shape of what looked exactly like my mother coming into his room. I assumed she was going to wake me up to get ready for school, but she walked right past.” Ben recounts

Thinking how strange, he knew it was her from her big curly hair and outfit but she didn’t say anything. He sat up and said “Mom”. 

“She stopped and backed up going toward the stairs while still facing me, but this time the light never blacked out. It shone right through her,” he said.

He jumped up, got dressed, and ran downstairs. By the time he got down, he realized it was 3 in the morning and no one was awake. 

“I went into his parent’s room and woke his mom up who was still dressed in nightclothes, and said she never went upstairs.”

A few years go by, only a few small things happen like hearing footsteps upstairs when he was downstairs and home alone or even paranoid feelings like he was being watched. 

Ben’s brother and mother hear and feel things as well. He thinks he may have been a touch more sensitive than them because of the sheer number of events he seemed to have experienced.

Ben’s father doesn’t believe any of them even though he would sit in a chair in his room and watch TV. He could see across the hallway to the back porch and would say he saw things peeking out or heard running upstairs when he was home alone. Ben says he still questions how much of his experiences are real.  But the doppelganger still makes him shiver (same).

Ben’s family end up moving into a trailer next to their house while they tore the house down. Through the years as Ben grows he eventually is old enough to enlist and left for the Army his brother, sister-in-law, and their daughter move into the trailer with Ben’s dad after his parent’s divorce. 

While in the trailer they claimed that something in the closet would growl at them and that they would see something standing by the bed all in black. They joked that the ghost was pissed that Ben left.

Experience 5

“I had been in the Army for a while and living in Alaska, and had less than a year left. I had been living with his friend and his wife in their house. My buddy’s wife talks about having a spirit following her since she was little and we all had some weird things happen.” Ben says.

One night Ben’s friend and his wife went out to get tattoos and Ben was home alone. He was laying in bed watching TV when he heard something come up the stairs. Assuming it was his friends he said “what’s up”. 

“I never got a response so I thought I was hearing things. I looked towards my door and saw that half of the door was blacked out, the hallway light lit the door up when it was on and unimpeded.”

“I sat up and said “What the Fuck”, and something ran out and down the stairs. I grabbed my pistol and ran downstairs and searched the entire house. Nothing.  I decided to take a shower to clear my head.” Ben said. 

He had the hot water going and was washing his hair when he felt a super cold chill go down his spine.

“I spun around and saw the shower curtain whipping around as someone yanked it.”

“You got to be fucking kidding me,” he said.

Ben got out. He felt drained of all energy and left the house to go to the store. Feeling better as soon as he drove away.

Ben said this was the only time they ever saw anything here, but they heard things all the time. He also said his buddy and his wife had some more experiences when they moved back to the continental United States.  

One morning his friend woke up in the late stages of his wife’s pregnancy and his keys, wallet, phone, and several more things they kept in drawers were gone. He went downstairs and everything that was missing was staked in a pile in the middle of the floor. 

It sounds like more Ben, his friend, and his wife are sensitive and have experienced more than most.  The fact that it doesn’t stay in one place suggests that maybe there’s an attachment going on. 

Experience 6

Ben is now 28 and living in Missouri about 15 minutes from his dad who still lives in the trailer the family moved into. 

Ben has a son who is about 6 months old at the time. His fiancé went downstairs to get laundry and their son started crying.

“My son was in bed and I heard my fiancée walk towards his room which is next to ours. He was crying and I heard her shushing him as if she was rocking him.” describes Ben.

Getting up to go to the bathroom Ben opened the door. His fiancé was coming from the living room, the opposite way of their son’s room. 

“I flung my son’s door open and he is in his crib still crying with no one else in the room,” Ben said.

What do you think Bizarros?  Does Ben have an attachment, or is he just in tune with the other side more than most people?

What would you do if you continually experienced things like this?